JJ Luna's personal privacy blog. In 1959 he moved to Spain's Canary Islands to begin a then-illegal educational work that included secret meetings in remote mountain forests. Although pursued by General Franco's Secret Police, he maintained his privacy via a false identity and was never caught. When the Spanish dictator moderated Spain’s harsh laws in 1970, Luna was free to come in from the cold. However, he remains in the shadows to this day. He is currently an international privacy consultant.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Are cell phone jammers and GPS jammers illegal?

Although cell phone jammers are sold all over the Internet, these jammers
are illegal in most countries. When it comes to using a GPS jammer, or blocker, in your own
vehicle, to hide your location from anyone who tries to track you, that's more
of a gray area. True, there was a famous court case this year that said
police needed a warrant to track your car, but that law had holes in it big enough
to drive a truck through. According to a police blog:

"If law enforcement officials can articulate a serious threat ... to
the general public, and that the tracking of a vehicle is essential to
guard against that threat, then it is not necessary to have a search warrant
for the installation of a tracking device. Only reasonable suspicion, and not
probable cause, is required under this exception."

Do my wife and I carry GPS jammers in our various vehicles? Should you and your mate carry jammers in your vehicles? (These are rhetorical questions.)

As someone else pointed out, active jamming of any part of the radio spectrum interferes w/ the govt's. monopoly [ie, FCC sale & control of the radio spectrum] & is heavily discouraged. OTOH, if someone put a GPS tracker on your vehicle, you should be able to use a bug detector to sweep it, find it, & then it's yours! "Some anonymous person just gave me a cool little gadget!" Cell phone jammers are similarly illegal, but due to the frequency of dropped calls and the danger of cell-using drivers, all motorcyclists should secret a jammer on their bike so that it is only on when the motor is running and can be switched on/off for brief periods when in heavy traffic. Very hard for The Man to catch you when you're only killing the calls in a 20 ft. radius at random locations & times when the "victim" isn't likely to complain because they realize they shouldn't be yapping anyway...